Tuesday, 27 June 2017

Volunteers I: supporting BSBI in Ireland

The words 'volunteering with the Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland' might conjure up days out in the field, recording wildflowers for Atlas 2020 or monitoring a patch for the National Plant Monitoring Scheme. That's exactly what many of our amazing volunteers do, but there's also a lot of essential work to be done indoors throughout the year and BSBI is also very grateful to volunteers who help behind the scenes.

"It is hard to believe that I contacted Maria Long over a year ago to discuss possible
volunteering options. I came up with this initiative as part of my academic
studies in trying to further promote my botanical skills, network, and gain
that much-needed experience in the area I wish to pursue. After my masters, I
have not had much joy of finding work placement but I still carrying on
volunteering for the BSBI when I can.

"Maria has been nothing but supportive
whenever I have asked her questions about botany or ecology. She has given me
such joyous and interesting tasks to undertake during my time volunteering. My
main tasks usually involve data entry, which may seem tedious and long winded
but someone must do it and I always find it interesting to see what people
found & where.

Old records of Co. WestmeathImage: S. Brien

"Recently, I entered Maria’s record cards from the Kerry recording event which I was unable to attend. Reading through some of the plant
records they stumbled upon and the wonderful scenery of Kerry, I was quite
jealous. "However, it was great to hear of what they found, the new attendees to
BSBI events, and the number of plants records over the five days. My primary task has been digitising Co.
Westmeath (VC H23) pre. 2000 records mainly from Con Breen (Vice County
Recorder).

"There is a lot of records (I mean A LOT) to enter into Excel format,
but this particular task requires me to act as a sort of botanical detective. The
maps and GPS devices that many people would use nowadays, weren’t as available
then. Townland names and a description of the area recorded were the next best
thing and being eager botanists, as members in the BSBI would be, a lot of
ground was covered in a day or two. The record card would be assigned a grid
reference at hectad, or if we are lucky, tetrad level, after searching through
both old & new maps, and referred to Con for changes or confirmation.

Shane out with the Dublin BSBI group - he's the one in the purple hat.Image courtesy of A. Murphy

"The
use of Stace (2010) acts as my trusty sidekick whenever old names need to be
updated to the current botanical names, providing less confusion for new eager
botanist’s in the future. It can be laborious at times, Con’s wealth of
knowledge (especially with Carex species) can put down nearly 200 plant species
on one record card, and typing them out takes a bit of time. Sometimes at the
end of the day, I feel like an encyclopaedia for botanical names in Westmeath.

Many thanks to Shane for telling us about his volunteering experience with BSBI, and for all the volunteer hours he's already given to our society. If you'd like to find out more about volunteering opportunities with BSBI, please email us here.